We’re gonna cheat. Just a little. The hot summer sun often damages the grass, there’s no avoiding that, but it doesn’t make outdoor photos any prettier when all that fresh green seems dirty yellow. Normally I don’t mess with the colors in my photos all too much, but for this I make an exception now and then. It looks fresher, more summery almost, when grass is the color it was intended to be. Especially against a clear blue sky.

Don’t go overboard, though: I once pointed out to someone that the grass in her photos and the eye color of her subject might be a little too much of a good thing (I should have kept my mouth shut), when she haughtily claimed this was all natural. I couldn’t help but laugh—the grass was so green it looked like they just dismantled a nuclear power plant in her front yard and the eye colors were so unnatural they looked like contact lenses in black-light. As it turned out the photos were not only seriously altered in Photoshop, but the Exif data gave away they were shot in really vivid colors to begin with. So much for all natural.

You don’t want to take it to that level, trust me. It looks bad. But there’s nothing wrong with giving mother nature a little hand.

Here’s the SOOC. This is not the best shot to show this technique on because this is not burnt grass, it’s merely a golden glow from the setting sun and I think it looks wonderful in this photo.

But I gotta show you what I mean and how I do this and you’ll get the idea, so let’s go.

If you have a lot of layers, flatten the image first. Either press Ctrl + Shift + E, or right-click on the background layer and choose Flatten Image.

Create a new layer by clicking Shift + Ctrl + N, or go via the top menu bar.

Give your layer a name. You’d be surprised how many people don’t name their layers and end up not knowing what’s what.

Set the layer mode to Color.

Click on the Foreground Color Picker.

And choose a shade of green that looks fresh green but not too blue green. Remember, you’re aiming for natural colors.

Press Shift + F5 to fill the layer or do this via the top menu bar.

That made things green alright.

Add a layer mask in the bottom of the layers palette.

And press Ctrl+I to invert the mask. This way you hide the colors and gradually bring them back in. The layer mask now shows up as a black square right next to the green opposed to the white square you’d get with a normal mask.

Select your brush tool.

Set both the opacity and flow to 25%. You could go even lower with the opacity.

Simply paint on the yellow grass until you have the exact color you like. This can be a really easy way to get rid of yellowish grass but be moderate… or I’ll scold you for it!

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